In a Name
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Sasuke on the frivolity of a title.


**Title:** In a Name  
**Author:** Celeste  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairing:** None  
**Spoilers:** Naruto anime up through episode 62 is all fair game.   
**Summary:** Sasuke on the frivolity of titles.   
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, not mine! *throws a tantrum* I want them to be mine!   
**Dedication:** Prism and Mel for putting up with my stupid improv urges. I think I typed this one out in record time!  
**A/N:** So yeah, Pris gave us great improv during chat and I felt the need to reciprocate and came up with…something less than stellar. You know, the usual. Aheh. Apologies for redundancy and stupidity, I was too lazy to go back over and do any editing, so it's raw as hell.   
**Distribution:** Let me know. 

~~~~~~~

Sasuke used to hold importance in names, in titles.

He had been, at one point in his life, a firm believer in structure and hierarchy, of the natural order of things having been attained long ago and that human beings should not go about deliberately challenging that balanced form. 

It had been instilled in him since his youth, since he was old enough to understand the words in the voices that floated into his young ears. 

He had learned from early on, that the Uchiha clan was a grand one. Their bloodline was superior to many others, rivaled only by the Hyuga in fact, and their lineage had always been a proud and accomplished one. Every successor of the Uchiha clan had been a genius ninja, and continued to be in both Itachi and himself.

He'd been told that, since his youth. Perhaps not in those exact words, but he remembered those ideas being prominent in the way others treated his family about the village and in the stories of old his father would tell he and his brother as he sat them on his lap at night after dinner. 

He'd been brought up to believe those ideas, in the structure of how things had always been.

Uchiha was a name well respected in Konoha for generations, and everyone admired this ancient, dignified line. 

He had been raised to believe in that, that hierarchy of a rich bloodline versus a bereft one, and for a long time, he had lived by it.

He'd lived by it until he'd been forced to open his eyes and realize the truth, to learn a lesson of the harsh realities the world had to offer.

And he'd learned that lesson, in the most difficult of ways. 

His parents had been murdered. 

Just because he held the name Uchiha did not make him strong. Simply because he held that title, that important moniker, it did not mean that he very naturally had assumed all the strength of the generations before him who had shared in that title, as he'd once believed.

He'd been forced to acknowledge that, the fact that in life, in reality, there was very little actual importance in a name, a title, a rank. 

He'd looked into the empty, sightless eyes of his beautiful mother and his handsome father, lying lifeless in a pool of their own blood.

And in it, he had been forced to see the truth. 

It had taken the death of everyone dear to him for him to finally realize that his name meant absolutely nothing. 

Absolutely nothing.

And though he often said he was fighting as an avenger for his clan, with each passing day, he began to believe his own words less and less. 

His revenge wasn't about vindicating his clan or clearing the name of Uchiha. It was more personal than that, more ingrained into the very essence of his soul. His own soul. Not that of his enraged ancestors or his kinsmen's now blotted history. His revenge was for the pain _he_ felt, for the tearing apart of his world and the people whom he loved that he'd shared it with before they were brutally ripped apart. 

It had never been about that title, about the great family Uchiha. 

It had been about his mother and his father.

His parents. 

People he loved had been murdered, and he needed to find something, anything to try and stop the unbearable pain he had to live with in being unable to protect them. Perhaps that was selfish. Perhaps it was selfish of him to forget about the family name. But it was the truth. 

It was never about the honor of the clan or even its restoration. It would never truly be about that, regardless of what others said, what others expected the last remaining successor to do to save the family reputation. Because by now, he'd learned. He'd learned very well that titles, hierarchies, _names_, meant very little. And he cared very little about them. 

Just because he'd had the name Uchiha given to him at his birth meant absolutely nothing now. A strong family, a grand family, a family at the top of the genetic ladder meant absolutely nothing to him anymore. It hadn't served him in anyway, hadn't been there for him when he'd needed it most, when he'd been faced as a small, frightened child with the beaten and bloodied bodies of his parents on the floor of their great clan's grand home. 

He'd learned well enough then, that a name, a status, did not matter. 

And that was why he refused to treat Naruto sweetly. 

The other boy may have been an orphan at birth who had lived alone all of his life and had no one to befriend him, but that didn't matter to Sasuke. 

That didn't give Naruto an excuse to slack off, to be either coddled or loathed by the rest of the village. None of that mattered. 

To Uchiha Sasuke, the name Uzumaki Naruto was nothing more than what he called his teammate. He refused to let any taboo attached to that moniker effect how he saw the other boy. Because now, he gave very little credit to those sorts of things.

What he did believe in was what Naruto showed him. 

Whether the name Uzumaki was regarded as better or worse than Uchiha, Sasuke could care less.

He'd seen what Naruto could do. Over their time in coming together as teammates, he had seen with his very own eyes, the progress of this other boy, the strength that was hidden in his impetuous actions and obnoxious attitude.

There was true strength there.

Not just the false assumptions of strength or weakness held in meaningless titles, but the absolute, irrefutable proof of its existence. 

And that was what mattered.

Sasuke knew, that sometimes, the village was surprised that he even bothered with Naruto. He knew that others who had graduated with them did not understand why Uchiha Sasuke even took the time and effort to goad Uzumaki Naruto, to tell him to work more and try harder. 

He knew that if they had been in his shoes, they would have just given up on the blonde all together, would have ignored him as usual and left him to be a failure because that was the expectation attached to his name. 

Sasuke didn't believe in names. 

He believed in what he saw, the truth of actions as they were performed in front of his eyes. 

And he saw Naruto's true strength. That was what mattered. 

The rest of the village could look down on him all they wanted, but they would never be able to change the simple fact that Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke were in all reality, rivals.

Most of them didn't believe they were even in the same league. 

Because of a name. Because of the histories attached to those names.

Sasuke pitied them their ignorance.

They hadn't seen. They _refused_ to see the power of Uzumaki Naruto, the steadily growing intensity that was tapped a little more every day, that grew despite their disregard of him, their disgust and pity. 

But Sasuke didn't believe in those sorts of things. He believed in what he saw, the strength, the potential that lived inside of his teammate.

His rival.

Because that was what Sasuke and Naruto were. Sasuke had proof, had seen, and knew that regardless of whatever title each of them had in the eyes of others, the irrefutable truth of the matter was that Naruto was as strong as Sasuke was. He'd seen it.

And that was why he refused to let any of those prescribed ways of thinking effect him, to ignore Naruto because that was what everyone else did. He refused to think anything without proof that it was true first. He saw Naruto as a rival because it was a fact, and the two of them would continue to push each other to greater heights of strength regardless of the gap between them others assigned them simply because he was Uchiha and Naruto was Uzumaki.

They would both become stronger.

That was what mattered.

And whatever proscribed condemnations that those blind fools had attached to the other boy would one day be shattered in the solid confirmation Naruto would earn with his actions. With the truth. 

They might not be able to see it. Might not want to. For now. But they would learn. Just like Sasuke had, a long time ago.

This very difficult lesson.

He no longer believed in the importance of a name or anything that came with one. They were not guaranteed. They meant nothing. 

What he believed in was reality, the truth he saw and experienced himself. 

That was the only reality in the world. It was all you could believe in. 

And that was why he believed in Naruto. 

It was the only truth. 

**END**


End file.
